Cathy's blog

Unhelpful perfectionism has many forms.

#overachiever #controlfreak #peoplepleaser #nitpicker

And my (unhelpful) perfectionism tends to show itself most when I feel like I have no control over things #powerlessness

I have this recurring dream that I’m travelling and need to get back home (in my sleep I’m a real world traveler btw — even in Covid-times 😉). But I can’t seem to get my stuff packed, I can’t get to the airport, everything I try to do takes ages. Until I wake up — safely at home and no luggage lost!

When I feel powerless in real life — I tend to freeze.

Our standard stress responses (fight, flight and freeze) were actually designed to deal with saber tooth tigers and the likes — so we could save ourselves from imminent life-threatening events.

So how do we adapt this outdated reaction to our current-day needs?

One of the most important skills in we can learn in modern life is how to create safety for ourselves. Especially when our brain goes into full-on tiger-defense mode... with no tiger in sight.

So when we don’t feel safe (angry client, judgmental coworker, unrealistic deadline or a Zoom-presentation for a critical audience), we have two very basic needs:

• To be seen/heard/understood
• To be valued, appreciated

But the thing we mostly end up doing? We judge ourselves.

You stupid woman... (#alloallo anyone?)

We won’t be able to stop our brain from overreacting at times.
But we can calm it down by not judging ourselves, by normalizing our reaction.

It’s OK to react as if we see tigers/mammoths/angry soldiers of another tribe.
That’s just a defense mechanism in our brain.

And you might even want to thank it for taking care of you 😊

But as soon as we stop fighting ourselves — we can go back to being the best, smartest version of ourselves.

Back in the driver’s seat and capable of a nuanced response.

You got this!